Suhodrev Victor Mikhailovich - Personal Translator of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev: Biography

It can be safely and without superfluous exaggeration to say that Victor Mikhailovich Suhodrev in the world of modern translators is considered a human legend. At one time he was a personal translator of such cults for the Soviet Union as Gorbachev, Brezhnev, Kosygin and Khrushchev. For almost thirty years he performed his professional duties, being present alongside the country's top leadership at closed international meetings and negotiations that have guided the fate of the world.

Childhood and family

Little Victor was born in December 1932. His family is very difficult to call typical and unremarkable. The head of the family - Mikhail Lazarevich Sukhodrev, worked in the GRU. He almost 10 years lived in the US, being there in the status of an illegal scout. Mother - Evgenia Alexandrovna, worked in the sphere of foreign trade of the USSR, namely in the trade mission of the People's Commissariat. In 1939 she was appointed secretary to one of the Soviet branches, which was located in London.

First trip abroad

When the boy was only 6 years old, unlike most Soviet peers, he was very lucky - together with his mother he was able to go abroad to the UK.

It is known that children adapt to a new atmosphere much quicker and easier than many adults. The same happened with the six-year-old Vitya - in London he got accustomed very quickly. Most likely, the boy had innate propensities to learn foreign languages, which at the time of his finding and communicating with the direct native speakers of English were particularly evident.

Little Viktor, while his mother was busy at work all the time, became very friendly with the boys of his age, the local postman and neighbors. He learned English in a natural way, by speaking just as in his second native language.

Initially, it was planned that after the trip, Viktor Mikhailovich Suhodrev, along with his mother, would be poisoned by permanent residence in the United States, to his father. But these plans were violated by the Second World War.

Thus, Viktor Mikhailovich Suhodrev, whose biography was largely determined by the military events that took place in the world in the 1940s, remained with his mother in the UK until the end of the war.

The future translator of Brezhnev, Kosygin, Khrushchev and other first persons of the Union already at the age of eight was engaged in an interpreting for the management of the school, which was located at the Soviet office, and in which Victor began his studies.

Teaching foreign languages in high school

After the war, Viktor Mikhailovich, together with his mother, returned to Moscow. He graduated from secondary general education school and to receive higher education decided to enter the Military Institute of Foreign Languages. An interesting fact is that a man who spent his subsequent life engaged in Russian-English simultaneous and consecutive interpreting, for study chose the French department. But such a solution has in fact a very simple explanation - the Moscow Military Institute, along with all of its best theoretical teachers, could not teach Victor, who for several years already studied English in practice, something new.

Many years later, after becoming an adult, Victor Mikhailovich Sukhodrev learned that after he successfully graduated from the Institute of Foreign Languages, he was very much wanted to enlist in the GRU, as a truly valuable frame. The old acquaintances of his father on intelligence appealed to him with a similar proposal, but knowing the specifics, complexity and ingratitude of such work, Mikhail Lazarevich answered them with a sharp and categorical refusal.

The first experience of a translator at the highest level

Viktor Sukhodrev is a well-known translator who, after graduating from the Institute, joined the Foreign Ministry in 1956. His really brilliant and lightning career is largely due to the fact that at that time in the Soviet Union there were practically no people who had the opportunity to live abroad and freely practice a foreign language to such an extent that they were at one level with born carriers. Thus, Viktor Mikhailovich Suhodrev became a kind of unique. Since even in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, such bilingual translators were extremely rare, the young man was literally immediately identified as personal translators to the top management of the country.

On his first working day, Sukhodrev was sent to accompany Khrushchev to his informal meeting with an Indian attorney. With this task the young man coped well. Since then, he became known as Khrushchev's personal translator.

Difficulty in work

Khrushchev can safely be called almost the worst option for the beginning of a young translator's career. After all, he owns such verbal pearls as "kuzkina mother" and "we will bury you", which later became known to the whole world. Such expressions of some were terrified by their spontaneity, and others were amused and amused by simplicity. But such statements, requiring instant adaptation and translation in such a way that their meaning was understandable to foreigners, any translator could bring to a heart attack. Sukhodrev had an innate talent to quickly and correctly find a way out of such situations.

Regarding this ability of the young man, one of the secretaries of the Central Committee, Frol Kozlov, once said that with Victor, it is never scary to attend various meetings and events, because if you say something stupid, he will always rightfully correct everything.

Rare qualities that made Sukhodorev irreplaceable

Viktor Mikhailovich can be seen on the set of photographs that captured the really important for the history of the meeting of the Soviet leadership with the heads of different states. You can safely say that this man had, let him have a modest, but still influence on the course of history. In many respects, from the ability of an interpreter to find the correct verbal equivalent of a certain expression spoken in different languages, it depends what kind of opinion will develop on the speaker. And Sukhodrev brilliantly coped with this task. For example, after Khrushchev's first visit to the States in 1959, Nikita Sergeyevich fell in love with thousands of ordinary Americans. Sukhodrev, of course, would be superfluous to say that his speeches in English were adapted and translated by Suhodrev.

But in order to become an interpreter of this scale, in the Soviet era, an ideal command of a foreign language was not enough. The natural sense of tact, knowledge and perfect mastery of business etiquette, a thorough understanding of the international political situation - this list is also far from a complete list of what helped Victor Mikhailovich enter the history of translation. According to the rules, he should always be at a distance of no more than 1 meter from the person with whom he was supposed to work as an interpreter. At the same time, he was able to remain truly invisible, an invisible person who, for all its importance, did not attract unnecessary attention and did not distract from the main speaker. Regardless of how long negotiations last or the informal meeting continues, the translator must always be collected and concentrated as much as possible, and Sukhodrev always succeeded. He realized that the translator is a person who simply has no right to relax and make mistakes in time, because once misunderstanding at the level of heads of state can sometimes be very difficult to correct.

The difficulties of technical consecutive translation

It should also be noted that Sukhodrev had to translate negotiations and meetings on completely different topics. And in order to correctly conduct a conversation, for example, about nuclear warheads, one needs not only to know the technical translation of terms, but also to understand the essence of the subject they are talking about. Knowing that he will have a translation at a meeting with a similar theme, Victor has always carefully prepared and studied the most subtle details of missile defense systems, or, say, strategic offensive weapons. It is undeniable that the intellectual development of a person capable of understanding such subtleties must have been much higher than the average.

Memoirs that became a bestseller

After the most popular translator of the Soviet Union retired, he decided to share his colossal experience, which could be useful not only to his colleagues, but also to the common man in the street. The book he wrote (memoirs) was published in 1999 under the title "My tongue is my friend". It immediately became a real bestseller, because even those people who did not have a professional interest in the subtleties of the translation, it was interesting to read the memoirs of a person who had worked with such outstanding people for many years as such as Brezhnev, Khrushchev, Kosygin, and had the opportunity to attend Meetings with M. Thatcher, D. Kennedy, M. Ali, I. Gandhi.

Even after retiring and retiring from belonging to affairs of state importance, Sukhodrev did not allow himself the freedom to give any political assessment to the events he had witnessed in his duty. In his book, he shares only interesting facts and describes various habits, weaknesses and characteristics of the powerful.

Hobbies and hobbies of Viktor Mikhailovich

Like any outstanding person, Sukhodrev had his hobby - he collected pipes for smoking all his life. Important is the fact that all the exhibits in his collection were necessarily working, the collector's decorative models were not interested. He was very proud of the tubes, which were made by the famous St. Petersburg master Fedorov. One of the most important of his exhibits was Sukhodrev, who considered the tube manufactured by the world-famous company Dunhill, presented to him at one of the meetings by Harold Wilson, the British Prime Minister.

In addition to collecting the pipes of this person, reading has always attracted. Since he spent his childhood in England, at an early age he had the opportunity to read in the original works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Conan Doyle. Having become an adult, Sukhodrev started a habit-hobby - when a free moment was given out, he was very fond of reading the Bible. At the same time Viktor Mikhailovich took two versions of the book: in Russian and English. While reading the Bible lines, he tried to translate all expressions in his mind immediately, and if he had any difficulties, he opened the second version and checked the translation. All his life, Sukhodrev considered the Bible as the ideal example of a quality translation, since this book was translated into all languages of the world, and its meaning was not lost.

Suhodrev Victor Mikhailovich: personal life

During his life this man was officially married three times. His first wife was a very beautiful woman, the famous Soviet actress Inna Kmit. Recalling these relationships, Sukhodrev once noticed that they were married with Inna at a fairly young age, and over time the difference in views made itself felt, the couple broke up.

The second wife of Viktor was Inga Sukhodrev, who also had some relation to the cinema. She was the daughter of actress T. Okunevskaya. Inga herself worked as an English teacher and from her previous marriage with David Lipnitsky she already had a son, Alexander. Sukhodrev adopted a boy and for the rest of his days treated him like his own son, despite the fact that the marriage with Inna itself broke up 7 years after the beginning of their life together.

The least is known about the third and last wife of Viktor Mikhailovich. There is information only that in the past she was an English teacher. At the time of the beginning of cohabitation with Viktor Mikhailovich, the woman was already retired.

The death of the main Soviet translator

This man, who had a chance to live a truly interesting and extraordinary life, died at the age of 82 years. On the death of May 16, 2014, the press was informed by his adoptive son, Alexander. Victor Mikhailovich Suhodrev, whose cause of death was not announced to the general public, is buried in the Aksinya Cemetery.